So let’s say a kid wants to learn something big.  And by big, I mean something that could take a long time to master - something like speaking a language fluently, playing the piano, having a book published, competing in the Olympics, reading Harry Potter.  An accomplishment that will mean a high degree of mastery in a particular area when reached, but first, things that might feel like chore, drudgery, work.  It’s easy to think, when kids resist the early steps and phases of acquiring a skill, that they don’t actually want it that much.  If they did, wouldn’t they be willing to do the work?  Show up for the unpleasant parts?  Too often as adults we default to one of two things.  We give up, because we decide it wasn’t that important to them in the first place.  Or we just insist on practice, because we know they really want the possible result and the only way we see to get them there is to force it, to override the resistance.

Yikes.  Sometimes it’s OK, and whatever  default option we choose ends up seeming as though it was for the best.  But often it doesn’t, and everyone gets frustrated and cranky and disappointed.

When we decide to force it, it’s often in increments of half an hour.  If you’re going to insist on piano practicing, it’s for half an hour.  Getting better at reading?  Half an hour at a time.  Learning to rollerblade?  Half an hour.  And again, sometimes that works, but often it doesn’t.

When it doesn’t, consider that a half an hour can seem like a very long time.  Instead, consider suggesting very very tiny amounts of time, amounts that seem so ridiculously small they can’t possibly make any difference.  Amounts so small that they feel manageable, even laughable, to whoever’s trying to master the thing.  You can try it out on yourself first to see it in action.  It will likely make you laugh, it’s so silly.  Plan on doing something for 2.5 minutes.  Do it for a few days, and see if you get anything done.  And see if you get more done than you were getting done when you were insisting on hours at a time from yourself.  See how your resistance compares.

Then invite your kids to try it with whatever’s looming too large.  No amount of time is too small to start with.  (It’s always possible to add time, but once something gets swallowed up by resistance and struggle, it’s hard to restore the inspiration for it.) And it’s OK to worry that they won’t ever master it this way, but if you’ve read this far, you know that’s very possible with the alternative too, so it’s worth a try.  And further, it’s very likely that if it’s something they actually want to master, they will end up doing more than the little amount they’ve promised, once it doesn’t feel too overwhelming anymore. (It’s worth mentioning that if they don’t really want to master the thing, none of this is likely to do anything but allow them to do it as little as possible, which might not be the worst thing to find out.)  Even if they do stick with two and a quarter minutes for weeks, they’re likely to decide to increase it.  Contrary to what we’ve been led to believe, kids really do want to get better at things.  They want to be more and more like adults, including in the realm of mastery and self-direction and self-regulation.  This approach gives them the chance to dabble in those.

But mostly, it’ll make it possible for them to take something on that’s big, in a way that doesn’t feel too big.

* I think it was because of one of Martha Beck’s books that I started using the practice, and inviting kids and parents to try it too. In order to include a link to her work here, I visited her blog and found that she just happens to have posted about what she calls turtle steps the other day. With a rather delightful turtle image, too.*

The other day a friend used the word “just” when referring in passing to a couple of hours her son had spent drawing.  Well, she started to use the word, and then stopped herself.  She said “He was sitting there at his desk, just drawing, - I mean, drawing, and then…”

The little word had no bearing on the story she was telling, but her choice to adjust what she said got us talking about how the word “just” gets used in this way, and how much of a difference it can make to remove it. We use the word all the time to belittle things, and kids’ pursuits are a common target.  Drawing, in fact, is a common target.

This mom is at work cleaning up her language, spotting biases that sneak out in small ways, about what does and doesn’t have value, particularly in areas her son is committed to where she would never choose to spend her time.  Here’s to that.

I love my digital camera.  Honestly, it takes better pictures than I deserve to be taking with my limited photographic skill.

The thing I can’t stand about it is that it’s designed to decide by itself what to focus on.  It’s supposed to be smart this way.  Even if something’s not in the middle of the frame, if the camera thinks it’s the most important thing, it’ll choose it.

Our relationship to children and childhood is a little like this at the moment.  We’re looking at kids through an auto-focus mechanism in which a preexisting force determines what we should look at, and thus not only what we’re able to see clearly but what we decide to put our attention on and pour our resources into. The things we know to look for and look at include reading or not reading, remembering multiplication facts or not, paying attention during the school day or not, getting in fights or not, doing homework and chores cheerfully or not.

The things we don’t tend to look for or see are the things about kids that are already beginning to determine and predict what they actually have to offer and what might make them thrive.  We might notice in passing, but we don’t give our attention to these things, because we’re busy with what the camera wants us to look at.  We don’t see the hints as to what activities and tasks kids are best-suited to, what kind of social situations are most comfortable for them and thus bring out their most pro-social behavior, what kinds of work they’ll likely be able to thrive at and sustain as adults.  Even though it’s right there in the frame.

What might change if you made the switch to manual focus?  What would you see?  Who is your child already, beyond the ways in which she doesn’t excel in school or other activities?  What does she do for hours at a time (exclusive of those things she does out of exhaustion or resistance)?  When is she full of vitality?  Who are the people who bring out the best in her?

You’ve seen your child’s brilliance and capacity, but you may also have been encouraged in this way to think of it as peripheral.  What if you moved it to the center of the frame, and let the rest get fuzzy as you go to work on honoring, validating, developing the brilliance and capacity that’s already there?

…makes the heart grow fonder, or so they say.  It can also make the plants seem like they’re growing faster, if you leave at the right time of year and the weather cooperates.

. … and 11 days later…   

Things can happen when/because you’re not micromanaging them.  My elation at the size of the plants upon my recent reminded me of that, along with something I heard on Radiolab some time ago.  The episode was about sleep, and in one of the segments,  Guilio Tononi, professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Madison, talks about practicing and practicing and practicing a piece of music and never quite getting it right, until enlisting sleep as a learning tool, or maybe a learning catalyst.  He wakes up and the music is there, ready to play flawlessly.

It’s worth remembering, I think, that sometimes things happen when one is not hard at work at something. The brain’s working all the time, fussing around with what we’ve been doing, what we are doing, what we’re about to do, and it’s a lot easier to think that learning something is a simple cause and effect process that happens predictably and reliably with time and effort commensurate with the time spent.  It’s so much more complicated.  What might the implications be?

Have a listen to the Radiolab episode if you’re interested in the sleep stuff, and/or how it helps with learning.

Try this one: Origami: the Art and fun of Japanese Paper Folding.  The drawings make sense, there’s lots of white space on the pages so as not to overwhelm, and it’s spiral bound so you don’t have to try to do your origami one-handed while the other hand keeps your book open.  It’s a little tricky to find an image of the book online; here’s one I found if you want to get a bit of a feel for it.

Yet another suggestion that things are not always as they seem. This reminds me of how many folks I’ve heard say that they can only focus on what someone’s saying if they don’t make eye contact, though we tend to assume it’s the opposite. Take a look at this summary of a study (published earlier this year in Applied Cognitive Psychology) about the effect of doodling on recall.

Well-known artisan Angela Adams recently told Martha Stewart that her thriving business started with childhood doodling.  There’s no telling what’s brewing when kids don’t seem to be getting much done.  You can watch the clip on Martha’s website. (Scroll down and click on Angela Adams Rugs.)